Regent
by R.C. McLachlan
Summary: There is a faceless, woman-shaped shadow where the memory of his mother lives.


This DBZ nostalgia kick I'm on just won't quit. "Regent" is set in that indeterminate time following Goku's sacrifice at the Cell Games, in which Vegeta is without a raison d'être.

Please note: I tend to portray these characters in a very realistic way. Their exaggerated traits work in the anime, but don't translate well into the written word. If that isn't your bag, I completely understand.

The story is unbeta'd. If you find any mistakes, please let me know. Also, "Caralu" is a play on the word "collard," as in collard green.

* * *

There is a faceless, woman-shaped shadow where the memory of his mother lives, and it has been years since he last ventured into the annals of his mind to prod at it.

She had been from one of the Southern Tribes, a Saiyan of great nobility and accomplishment. As a child, he asked about her only once, to which his father's right hand replied gruffly, "She culled Lanci-I X9 on her own," but the pride in his voice was unmistakable. His mother, like so many Saiyan women, hadn't made it through the birthing process, ripped apart by the very thing she had created, and she surely would have chafed under the rigid routine of queenhood had she survived, but she had been a warrior first and foremost. She had been a worthy wife for the Saiyan king, even if for a short time.

What would she have thought of her only child, the heir, being bested by a third-class nobody? What would she have done if she knew he was not the first to attain the legend of the Golden Warrior, that he failed to avenge their race and died, sobbing like a child with a split knee, in the mud of a foreign world?

She no doubt would have done what any sane Saiyan would: reject him as the heir, and destroy him. He wouldn't have blamed her; it's every Saiyan's right to have worthy offspring, even moreso a worthy lord.

It would be easy, more than, to redeem himself, to make him the Heir Apparent once more. All it would take would be one well-placed blast aimed right at the core of the planet, and he would finish the mission with which Kakarot had been tasked. Earth would be destroyed and take Kakarot with it, and the wrongs would right themselves and he would finally be king, with his subjects totaling exactly zero.

He rolls over with a grumble. Though it would undoubtedly be the most fulfilling thing he'd ever do, and while he would relish every moment of the demise of Kakarot's brat, even he knows it would be a short-lived satisfaction.

There is a hollow space just under his ribs that aches with envy for something, anything, and he rubs absently at it. A Saiyan can go mad without a mission, a directive, or at the very basic level a purpose. His was snatched from him that day in the wastelands, where a little boy wept for the father who'd sacrificed himself in the name of duty, honor, and righteousness. With Kakarot's death, his purpose was dissolved. He is less now than he ever was, even when he was bound in Frieza's chains. There is nothing left of him, except—

Except.

His fingers drum against the gray bedspread, right over the stitching of the Capsule Corporation logo.

He rolls onto his back.

He hums under his breath.

Not once, prior to coming to Earth, did he think about continuing his line. It never crossed his mind as a child, as the importance of it had not been instilled in him by his father, and by the time he was of an age when it would be something to seriously consider, he was already well into his tenure as Frieza's lackey and had no need for an heir.

Even when he thought of it in the dark of this very room, in the shadows of the gravity simulator, it had been an idle wish. There would be no other of the House of Vegeta after him, and the royal line would end.

A laugh bubbles in his chest and forces its way out, dragging its edges along the soft insides of his throat. He is the rightful ruler of a race long gone, was the slave of the tyrant who obliterated his world, and has since put down roots on the planet of which his rival calls home. He has seen what has come of his half-breed child, has met the man the infant will grow to be, and he can't help but think that his son's brand of strength and integrity would have been a welcome change for the Saiyan people. The boy—no, the man would have redeemed the royal line.

If there's anything he has learned since coming to this backwater mudball, it's that the planet exists to subvert his expectations.

He's knocked from his thoughts when the door to his room hits the wall with a startling bang, and Vegeta sits up, fingers curled around a ball of ki, ready to dispatch whatever threat was able to so easily surprise him. Either they are hiding their power level, or—

"Hey, are you busy?" Bulma asks, breathless, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining with an almost manic light. She shifts from foot to foot in the doorway. "What am I saying? Of course you're not."

—Or have none to speak of.

The ki disperses with a whisper and he sneers. "And to think you tried so hard for so long to teach me to knock before entering."

"Bitch, bitch, bitch." He'll kill her. "Although I have to say, this is a nice change from the sourpuss thing you've been rocking as of late," she says. "You need to come with me _right_ now."

"No."

Her eyes narrow. "Excuse me?"

"To answer your question, yes, I am busy. Very busy, in fact." To illustrate the point, he slumps back against his pillows and crosses his arms, settling in comfortably, even as his muscles protest their sudden lack of use. It sparks something that looks an awful lot like rage on her face, and the corners of his mouth quirk without his permission. There she is. There is the human woman who refused to be cowed by him, who matched his strength with her mind, who took his hand one day, placed it upon her belly, and didn't need to say anything beyond "yes or no?"

There she is.

He can see the exact moment she refuses to rise to his bait and instead places a morsel upon her own hook. "What, writing Goku tear-stained love letters to bury at his non-existent grave? 'My dearest Kakarot—'"

The ball of ki flares in his palm, twice the size it was before. "Woman, I swear to God—"

"'Long has it been since I last laid eyes on your perfect face, with your orange gi starched just right and your hair looking like you stuck your tongue in a light socket." She breaks into giggles and valiantly pushes on, and gods, he wants to kill her, "I must confess to you that all this time my hatred for you has been a front. I don't hate you, Kakarot. I lov—' Oh my god, are you going to throw up?"

Yes. "No, but I _am_ going to commit cold-blooded murder. The color of the walls is beginning to bore me; perhaps I ought to redecorate them with your insides."

"Red doesn't really seem like your color. You're more of a blue kind of guy. Bruises. You know. Okay, seriously though. You need to get out of bed." A wicked grin curls at her mouth. "Which is something that I never thought I'd say to you."

His cheeks go hot, and he remembers having her every which way in this bed, fast, hard, laughing, and then slow, once, the last time, where he was as far inside her as he could possibly be, barely moving for almost two hours, just allowing himself to feel her, _have_ her, and not once did she complain, not once did she do anything except run her fingers over the scars on his back as if her touch alone could make the skin whole and whisper in his ear how much she wanted him, how good he was, until he couldn't stand to hear any more of it and finally moved within her.

He fled like a coward into space that night, leaving her tangled in the sheets without so much as a word.

"Vegeta," she barks, and her fingers snap at him as if he were a mongrel in need of training. "Let's go."

"Go _away_, woman!" He roars. "You haven't offered me a single reason why I should get up! If you think for a moment that I will simply do as you bid—"

"Oh my god, you're killing me here." She stands on the threshold, vibrating in place, her desire to throttle him plain on her face, and for a moment he wishes she had been with him when he attained it, that she had been the first to see him, gilded and unstoppable.

A tiny ball of ki, no larger than a marble, forms in his palm and he takes great pleasure in lazily letting it roll over and under his fingers. He glances up and watches her watch it, her eyes following it like it's a loose line of code in one of her machines. "Would you like me to?"

She blinks. "Like you to what?"

"Kill you. I'd make it quick," he says, and his fingers move quickly, the ball of ki even faster, until it is nothing except a blur of light. She makes a face, and he grins, suddenly full of energy, and it thrums through his veins like nothing he's felt since he first learned of the Dragon Balls.

He slips from the bed and slowly makes his way toward her, fingering the ball of ki absently, feeling it pulse through his gloves, and to her credence Bulma doesn't so much as blink. She allows him in her space, her eyes hard, thoughtful.

"It's not all explosions and limbs strewn everywhere. Not that those don't have their place—there's nothing quite as satisfying as watching your opponent be wrenched apart, knowing that you tore them down to their most basic components." He backs her up against the wall of his room and slots his mouth against the swell of her collarbone, nose buried in the place where the line of her shoulder bleeds into her neck, and inhales. He shivers at her scent, metallic and oil and something raw and untamed for all her ridiculous luxuries and comforts. Had she been Saiyan, she would have been branded low-born, a scientist instead of a fighter, a failure, and none would have had her but all would have wanted her.

"Could've fooled me," Bulma mutters, but he can hear the hitch in her voice, the exhale that trembles over her lips as it leaves her. "Vegeta—"

"To be Saiyan is to know control," he says, low, tongue darting out to taste her skin. "It's murder, and there is an art to it. Finesse."

She shivers. He reaches up and presses the vibrating edges of the little ball of ki right over her sternum, letting her feel the brush of it, the promise. "I'd make it so that you'd never even know this was burning through your lung, your muscles, until you were on the floor and had already bled out—you'd think you'd have been born with it."

One twitch of his hand and it would pierce her heart, her head, her throat, any of the impossibly fragile places on her body, and he would be free of her once and for all.

He extinguishes the ki but keeps his hand where it is, pressed against her, and he can feel her warmth even through the fabric of his gloves.

Bulma takes a breath, then another, and then places her hand over the nape of his neck, gently lifting him away. He steps back and waits, for her to scream or laugh or throw any of his many failings in his face for such a threat against her.

But, as always, his expectations are shot.

She smiles. "Come with me or don't, Vegeta, but eventually you're going to see this and you're going to shit!" With that, she leaves the room.

He stares after her, aroused, amazed, and _alive_.

And then it registers. "I'm going to _what_?!"

By the time he finds her, she's leaning against the back of the couch, arms crossed, smiling knowingly at him. In the middle of the room, surrounded by plastic toys that squeak and honk, as well as a floating contraption that inaccurately depicts the solar system, is the boy, babbling at nothing and banging a stuffed monstrosity against the floor.

"Nice of you to join us," Bulma says, and Vegeta watches as the boy's head swivels around at the sound of her voice. Blue eyes light up and the boy drops the stuffed creature, beaming, staring at her as if she hung the moon, and as far as the child is concerned she did. Vegeta wonders if he would have looked at his own mother in such a fashion. He's almost certain the answer is no.

"Make it quick," he growls, still flushed and heady from where he had been pressed against her.

"As if you have anything better to do. All right, now watch." But she pushes away from the couch and moves to stand beside it, several feet from where the boy sits, his chubby fists waving at her.

Vegeta crosses his arms and saunters to stand at her side. "Well?"

"God, shut _up_ and _watch_, or are you going to tell me another lovely story about how nice my murder will be?" Bulma drops to her knees and throws her arms out to the boy, a large smile upon her face. "Okay, Trunks, come to mommy!"

He groans. "Did you drag me here to see the fucking brat walk? I ought to kill you where you sta—"

Except the brat isn't walking.

Chubby hands push a chubby body into standing, and with a look of absolute concentration the boy slowly lifts himself into the air, a precarious hold, listing awkwardly but continuing to hover. Flying.

Vegeta stares.

With a squeak, the boy suddenly plummets the short distance to the floor and almost immediately bursts into howling, shrieking tears. Vegeta resists the urge to cover his ears to escape it, but only just. He is a prince and a little crying will not make him falter in his steps like… gods, but the brat has a set of lungs on him.

At his side, Bulma stands up and puts her fists upon her hips, frowning. "It was just a little tumble, Trunks."

The boy ignores her, reaching out with grasping hands toward her voice, and she huffs.

"Oh, none of that. Cut that shit out right this instant."

As if on cue, the boy ceases his wailing and glowers at her.

"Now get up."

The boy looks away from her, ignoring her, and Vegeta is about to go over there and punt the little shit through the wall for showing such disrespect, when Bulma crosses her arms, tilts her chin, and clears her throat pointedly. She looks like a queen.

"Trunks Vegeta Briefs, you will get up or so help me you won't see another ice cream cone until you're thirty. You are the heir to the Saiyan throne and you will _act like it_. Now get _up_."

Stunned, Vegeta turns the boy's name over in his head—_Trunks Vegeta Briefs, Trunks Vegeta Briefs_—and resolutely ignores the thrill that sings through him to know that even when faced with birthing a half-Saiyan child alone, Bulma recognized the importance of the boy's heritage and tied him to it, even if only through a name. There is power in names.

Giving a whuff of annoyance, the boy slowly gets to his feet, laughable in his diaper and cap with the pointed ears; no self-respecting Saiyan would have been caught dead in such attire, and yet no Saiyan that Vegeta knows of learned to fly before they could speak.

The boy sways for a moment, then steadies himself, and his blue eyes go distant, searching within himself for the ki that belongs to his father and his father before him.

"Come on," Bulma says under her breath, her gazed fixed, as if the boy were a particularly interesting blueprint.

Vegeta feels a small flare of ki and frowns, crossing his arms and watching as the boy once again rises slowly into the air. Wasting energy on flight is nonsense; he'll have to train that out of the brat.

Bulma settles with a smile. "Good job! Okay, now come to mommy."

He watches, interested despite himself, as the boy flounders his way across the living room, wobbling, pudgy arms flailing.

"Our kid is a genius," Bulma crows. "_Bonafide_. He's gonna go Super Saiyan before he's ten—I'm calling it now."

Vegeta sputters. "Can your tiny mind comprehend how much training and discipline is needed to attain Super Saiyan?"

She turns her head and smirks at him. "Better get started, then."

"You think simple praise for mediocrity is going to help him reach that kind of power?"

"Yes." She sounds so _sure_ of it. "I do. How old were you when you learned to fly, exactly?"

Vegeta says nothing.

The boy's cheeks grow red with exertion as he falters at the last two feet, and the tenuous grip he has on his fledgling ability disappears entirely just as he reaches Bulma, who catches him easily as he begins to fall.

She turns the boy until he is held securely and she lets out a whoop. "Good job, sweetheart!"

The boy babbles excitedly, proud, and pulls back to pat Bulma's face, staring adoringly up at her.

"My baby." She cups the back of the boy's head and cradles him close, her grin tempering to something softer, sweeter, and Vegeta swallows hard at the sight of it. Her eyes find his. "Our."

Blue eyes peer at him from beneath the comforting hold of her hand and that ridiculous hat, a glimpse of light fringe against impossibly soft skin, and the boy—their boy—coos, a tiny hand reaching over Bulma's shoulder to him.

He's caught by those eyes, his own redone in shades of blue, and hesitantly lifts his hand in return, allowing the boy to grasp his index finger. He can barely feel the grip, but the potential is there.

"After his second birthday."

Vegeta startles and withdraws his finger. The boy whines at its loss, then finds a new interest in the softness of his mother's hair. "What?"

Bulma turns, and it is another set of blue eyes that regard him. "Start training him after his second birthday. If you plan to stick around, that is."

It isn't expectation in her tone, exactly, but something else, something that clings far more, and that emptiness inside him shrinks just a bit. He absently rubs just beneath his ribs, wincing, and snorts, shrugging it off. "Oh, do I have your permission to leave? How gracious."

She isn't impressed. "Do you honestly think I could keep you here if I wanted to?"

There is very little she is incapable of doing. "I have… no immediate plans to leave."

The line of her shoulders, which had been tense, a tell he had missed, relaxes, and she smiles, radiant. "Good. That's good. Wait a year, then he's all yours. "

"And why am I wasting such valuable time?"

"Because his _skull_ hasn't finished developing," Bulma says, eyes rolling, shifting the boy, who has taken to yanking on her hair. "Ow, sweetie, that's—"

"Enough," Vegeta snaps at the boy, who freezes, staring at him with wide eyes. "Your mother is correct—you are a prince, and you _will_ act like it. Release her."

The boy doesn't move.

Visibly attempting to hide her grin, Bulma gently extricates her hair from the boy's grasp. "Wow. Finally taking an active role, I see."

Vegeta sniffs. "Hardly. You're the brat's mother. He doesn't have to like you, but he will respect you."

"Did you like your mother?"

Her name was Caralu. She was of the Southern Tribes, had culled Lanci-I X9 on her own, and had been worthy of the king. "I didn't know her."

Bulma opens her mouth, rouged lips parted with countless questions, but she pauses, shuts it, and turns her attention to the boy, bouncing him lightly to make him laugh. "That's too bad. Good thing this little guy won't have that problem. I'm not going anywhere."

Vegeta snorts. "If that's all—"

"Actually, I had some ideas I wanted to bounce off of you about the gravity simulator." Bulma bounces Trunks once more, and her efforts are rewarded with a yawn. She grins down at their son. Their heir.

"You want _my_ input. You never have before."

Bulma looks up and smiles. "Well, you weren't training our kid then."

He can feel the answering smirk spread across his face like a slow-burning fire, and says, "You'll let me train the boy in the simulator?"

"I distinctly remember you saying something about your planet having ten times Earth's gravity. Might as well start him off there." She winks. "I want to pick your brain about everything. If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right."

"What do you honestly expect of the brat?" But he's grinning even as he asks it, and the darkness that befell his mind and mission in the wake of Kakarot's death lifts. The world is suddenly, impossibly bright.

"We saw what happens when he just has me. Imagine what he's going to be like with _both_ of us."

He glances down at their dozing son, and then back at her. "A mercenary prince and a loud-mouthed, weakling scientist. You know what that will make him?"

She grins. "Unstoppable."

Saiyan pride and resolution in a body that could die from a cold with a mind that could rent the universe in two and the will to make even the smallest take flight. She would have been loved and feared and hated in equal measure, and yet Vegeta can think of no instance in which her legitimacy would be questioned. No voice would rise against her, their alien goddess.

Somewhere, Queen Caralu is watching and, whoever she is, no doubt approves.


End file.
